HydrogenPro’s subsidiary Advanced Surface Plating (ASP) conducts ground-breaking R&D project
1st of February, 2023. HydrogenPro’s subsidiary Advanced Surface Plating (ASP), has recently been able to visualise the distribution of hydrogen and oxygen gas within an operating alkaline electrolysis cell. This is a significant result of ASP’s granted research projects and will allow for further optimisation of the electrode properties used in HydrogenPro’s alkaline electrolyser units.
The results were achieved by taking images of the operating electrolysis cell using a neutron radiography station that utilises neutron particles, not light, to capture the images. The uniqueness of neutrons is the ability to resolve precisely where the hydrogen and the oxygen gasses are formed during the electrolysis process.
“I’m delighted that we are beginning to deliver results based on our granted national and international research and development projects. To the best of my knowledge, we are the absolute first R&D team in the world to perform neutron imaging of the hydrogen and oxygen formation inside a fully operational alkaline electrolysis cell”, says PhD, HD(O) Lars Pleth Nielsen, CEO of Advanced Surface Plating.
One of ASP’s industrial PhD students, Marcus Kragh-Schwarz, performed the experiments in collaboration with a team from the Big Science Centre at Danish Technological Institute. The team conducted the experiments at the Neutron Spallation Source, SINQ, at Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland. The PhD student is co-supervised by Prof. Anders Bentien and Prof. Bo Brummerstedt, Aarhus University. Innovation Fund Denmark and Energy Cluster Denmark have supported the project. The work is currently written in a scientific publication.
In 2022, HydrogenPro increased its R&D project portfolio to surpass 150 million NOK.
“This research supports our mission to continue driving the green hydrogen industry forward. The outcomes of these innovative R&D projects, combined with increased manufacturing capabilities of our standardized 5.5 MW electrolyser module and new sales orders, are paving the way for further growth in 2023”, says HydrogenPro’s CEO Tarjei Johansen.
As shown in the figure below, hydrogen and oxygen gas increase in the flow direction. Even more importantly, most of the hydrogen gas is formed on the surface of the nickel-based electrodes near the membrane. These findings enable Advanced Surface Plating and HydrogenPro to further optimise their state-of-the-art electrodes in the absolute vicinity of the membrane.
Figure caption: Left: The hydrogen and oxygen gas distribution within the electrolysis cell during operation. These results indicate an accumulation of gasses in the flow direction and, more importantly, illustrate that most hydrogen gas is generated in the absolute vicinity of the membrane. Right: Schematic illustration of the custom-made electrolyser cell enabling the neutron imaging experiments.
